Grabbing someones arm you thought was your mother's

When i see the king and his men
step into the room with a bland podium
and they look into the camera
they smile like a cat that broke into the bird cage
broad, black iris knowing that it doesn't matter if they get caught
because they already drew the blood

When i see them defending
the shutting of the door
pretending to not say that they hate me
and my mom
and my dad
and my grandfather
and my grandmother
and my aunts and uncles
the ones who lived and died on this land
and slightly further south
the ones i never met
and did
not one of them ever did anything
that was unforgiveable in the eyes of the law
except live

They say, its about safety
and they look like wild coyotes
laughing louder at 3:30 in the morning
startling me awake, and my wife
and we worry about who they got

I never thought about myself in that way
But now I really do wonder
if all of those smiling faces i've encoutered in my life
were lying to me all along
and I feel as helpless as
I was when I was lost as a child
in a cavernous grocery store
when i accidentally held
the hand of a woman
I thought was my mom
and I felt embarassed
and not wanted